Carrageenan: Risks and Reality

If it’s in our food, it must be safe to eat, right? We can say that about countless ingredients that have been proven to be unsafe. Carrageenan is one of them.

How does this happen? How is it that a harmful ingredient is allowed into—and in some cases thousands—of food items? Just look at the FDA’s recent ruling on trans fat. You’ll find trans fats in processed foods including frozen meals, margarine, desserts, even movie popcorn. People have been eating trans fats for decades, and likely suffered health issues as a result. Now, the FDA has found that trans fats are no longer generally regarded as safe and the agency is taking measures to eliminate them from the food supply.

For decades, scientists conducting laboratory animal experiments using the common food additive carrageenan have found higher rates of gastrointestinal inflammation, colitis-like disease, and even colon cancer.

Carrageenan is a convenient and unique food additive for the food industry, and selling carrageenan is a profitable enterprise for a handful of chemical corporations. For decades, these companies have spread misinformation—often, outright lies—about carrageenan’s safety.

And who has been more than willing to listen to the corporate scientists rather than to the scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health? That’s right: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In June 2012, the FDA rejected a citizen petition by the nation’s preeminent publicly funded scientist and carrageenan expert, who formally requested that carrageenan be removed from our food supply.